"I don't think Brandon quite understood what I was trying to do."
The cold air breezed around them, and the thirties-ish man before Nick had wrapped himself up in his own arms, but invited them both to sit on his front swing.
"I been watching the kid's life since he came to live with his grandparents. And it's been a real train wreck, lemme tell ya... His grandmother adored him, but his grandfather didn't like him. Like, at all... And how fast he died after Brandon came, I'd have almost thought she'd done it..."
Nick nodded, and inclined his head for further explanation. "Well, maybe we'll look into that. But what I want to know is how it was when the uncle came."
"Who?" asked Jason. "The guy who died today? That wasn't his uncle. Wasn't related at all to the family."
Despite himself, and the number of lies he uncovered professionally, Nick could not quite keep the widening of his eyes in check.
Jason sniffed in the cold night air, and averted his eyes uncomfortably. "The guy just came in one day and took over. My wife at the time noticed it first. I remember days where we would see the kid climbing out of a window, and suddenly the guy's hands would pull him back in. Brandon kicked so hard... Like he was trying to get away by any means necessary. But the guy was a brute. He'd just drag the kid upstairs and lean him out a window, and threaten to drop him if he 'ever tried that again'."
There was a mocking tone in his voice that told Nick Jason had been bothered by this for quite some time. And his feelings of remorse – largely crushed by the turns of the case – began to resurface again.
"I think the guy was molesting him. At school, Brandon had this real thing, you know...? About... well, about dicks... Like he was trying to wrap his head around something he didn't understand. And he got caught messing around with one of the other boys in his class during the 12th grade. We'd see weird things happening through the windows, but we never could get a clear enough visual on it, or a picture, or anything."
"Why didn't you call the police?!" demanded Nick, irritation raising the question he had so wanted to ask.
"We did!" Jason replied. "But they never did anything! They came to the house to do a wellness check each time, but there was never anything more. They told us they hadn't found anything incriminating, and that was the only investigation they ever had. The balding man leading the thing told us to find something concrete, and call them again. Gave me his card, and everything... But we couldn't get anything, no matter what we did. I even tried creeping over at night... There was just nothing obvious enough."
"Whose card...?" pressed Nick. More for an easy lead on holding the son of a bitch responsible than anything else...
"I don't know," said Jason, annoyed... as if this were not the point. "It's inside somewhere. Still on my fridge. But after that, I started talking to the kid a little. Found out some details, and tried to be understanding about the whole thing. I let him work with me on the janitor jobs sometimes, after school. Even paid him a little something for it, out of my own pocket, thinking maybe he'd get to go out and have fun every once in a while."
Nick nodded, and leaned forward to hear better through the wind.
"But then, one day, I came into the janitor's office and found that Brandon had just finished jacking off in my chair. There was a picture of me and my family covered with his... Well, his..."
"Sperm," Nick filled in.
"Yeah, sperm. And I mean, I kinda felt bad about it, but I freaked out. I turned it in to the school, and Brandon was made to go straight home after that. It was, like, a year before he graduated. We didn't talk much during it, but when he was finished, and jumped right into a job at the tech warehouse, we ended up talking one day over lunch, and he apologized for the whole thing. Said he was just a kid, trying to work things out and move on. From his 'uncle's' fucked up living environment... I let it go. Never had any problems, since."
Nick took a deep breath, and scratched his forehead as Jason's story came to an end. An increasingly piercing feeling of discomfort was growing in his chest, and the last question he needed to ask was hesitant to leave him.
"When was the last time you saw him...?"
"About two weeks ago," Jason replied, eyes on his feet where they huddled up in front of him. "Told me he'd been promoted, but that he'd come back to rescue his grandma. I was worried he might ask me to help him, but he never did. He said he was going to go to the police, himself. I wished him good luck, and that was the end of it."
Nick sat up from his position of weariness, and his phone buzzed. Finally driven beyond breaking point on the family front, he tore it from his pocket, and shut it off. And as he placed it back where it was, he affixed Jason with a sympathetic look.
"Thank you for your help. When the case finally comes through, I'll tell you anything I can," he promised.
He stood up, and stretched his back a little, both ways. Jason did not respond so well to the night, though. He merely squeezed his arms a little tighter around himself.
"But for now, could I get that card, or a picture of it?" Nick tried again. "I wonder if the person still works with L.V.P.D... and I'd like to get their insight on this whole thing. Maybe even bring 'em in on the case."
"Sure."
Jason disappeared into the house. And Nick peeked inside... There was a drastically different environment from the one suggested by Brandon's childhood home. In stark contrast to the alcohol-drenched despair and depravity that they had drug their victim out of, Jason's home appeared warm and caring, and welcoming to all who entered with the best of intentions. He was a good guy... and Nick wondered whatever had caused an "at the time" marriage... Because whoever the red-haired woman was that kissed him, and then waved to Nick through the front door, she did seem to be a past tense affair.
But helpfully, Jason explained without any urging. "That's my current wife. Old one left a couple years ago. Things just didn't work out..."
Nick angled his eyes down, mind darting to the recent divorce of his friend...
"Yeah," he said. "Seen that a few times..."
"Yeah," echoed Jason. "Well, anyway, here's that card. It's old, but it's not too faded to read."
He held it out between two fingers, and Nick took it like it was about to fall apart. He didn't even need to read the clearly-visible label at the top to know whose it was, though.
"Son of a bitch..." he uttered, tiredly.
Conrad Ecklie.
"Of course," Nick said. "Of course it was..."
"Something wrong?" asked Jason, and the tone he used was revealing.
It told Nick that Jason's understanding was core. And he knew why Brandon, in such a terrible place, had gravitated towards him.
"Thank you," he said. "But it's nothing major. I do have someone to see, though..."
As he left the porch, and his feet made contact with the concrete of the walkway again, the question perhaps most important... both to him, and to Jason... was spoken aloud by the latter.
"He did it, didn't he?"
Nick stopped, and turned around. "I'm sorry?"
"Brandon," Jason clarified. "He killed the guy across the street. And his grandmother's dead..."
Nick bit down on his tongue, literally, and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I'm not supposed to say it, but... Yes. His grandmother's dead... And all the evidence suggests that Brandon... for whatever reasons... may be responsible."
There was shock, but little of it, in Jason's expression. "I see..." And his gaze dropped momentarily... "Thanks for letting me know, anyway... I promise, I won't tell until it's safe."
Nick smiled. He couldn't help it. "Thank you very much, Mr. Veran. And you have a very good night. Sorry to interrupt you and your wife."
"No problem," answered Jason.
And the words stayed in Nick's mind – both reassuringly and invigoratingly – the rest of his drive back to the lab. With an image in his mind, his stolen evidence recovered, and perhaps the discovery that he knew Grissom would call the most valuable, yet: understanding.
"Your daughter..." repeated Brass. Sounding almost disbelieving...
"That's right," replied the old lady, squinting at the picture. "She was..."
"What? How–how..." Sara stumbled over her words. A lot of questions were forming in her mind. But after a short bit, she settled on the one that rang most prominently. "Where is she?"
A look of uncomfortable remorse crossed her husband's face, and he suddenly seemed to take the reins on the speaking part. "She died. Several years ago... When her husband– Er... Well, that young bastard she married may have killed her."
Greg threw his hands up. Brass rubbed his forehead, and reached for a notepad to scribble things down in.
But Sara stepped a little closer, and leaned in to get answers. Through all the chaos... Through all the excitement. All she wanted, more than anything else at that time, was something to work with. To help these people find their peace... "What happened...?"
The elderly couple looked at each other. And at least a hundred worries came out on their faces. But they each sighed... and the wife gripped her husband's forearm with one hand. And he returned her gesture by placing his other hand on top of hers.
"Our daughter met and married a young man by the name of Brandon, when she was very young. He was a football star, you see... and she was ever the queen of the popular girls."
"But we didn't like him!" the wife burst in with. "Not at all! He–"
"Honey..."
There was a saddened tone behind this admonishment. As if they had spoken of it many times before, and he had always had to calm her down at this part. And her response – to fall silent with no further outburst – felt the same way.
"In school, he was accused of rape. But when it could not be proved, it was dropped... and try though we did to keep Andrea away from him, she didn't listen. Young children, they find a way, Ms. Sidle. I'm sure you can understand..."
Sara smiled back at him. Although, if there was one solid thing she had learned from her career, it was that she didn't want children.
"We had to admit, we felt a little foolish when he opened his home cleaning business," continued the husband. "And even more so when he gave her enough money to open her own décor company. They made such wonderful plastic products, and everybody loved them. Even some of the bigger casinos here in Las Vegas were looking for them... It was quite a life she was carving out. And then, she was pregnant, and we were all very excited about it.
"Except, apparently, for Brandon. After they were married, and Brandon Jr. had been born, we found out that he had been hitting her. With his fists, and tools, and household implements... Our little girl... That was sometime back in the early nineties. And again, we tried and tried to talk her out of it with him. We offered to move her into our place. To pay for the legal expenses... Anything it took."
"And she wouldn't budge," said the wife. "It was years, Ms. Sidle. Years, and we knew what was being done to our daughter. And they wouldn't listen to us... Not the police, or the team running the investigations. Eventually, they left. Went to Phoenix, and started a life there. Or, at least, that's what they told us... We didn't believe them, and when we finally had to decide if we would go and find out, we didn't. By then, they had come back. We didn't know that, at the time, either. Until I ran into Brandon's mother at the store one evening..."
She fell silent. And so did Sara, even through the many lines she was trained to offer – by the department, and by experience – that were rising to her mind. And neither Brass, nor Greg had spoken a word.
"The plastics business closed in 2000. But Andrea got another job, working for a jeweler."
Sara perked up.
"She lives... well, right above us. I'm guessing it was her bathroom you fell through?"
Sara rubbed the side of her arm. "Yes..." she admitted sheepishly.
"I see... And what kind of trouble has the woman gotten into...?"
"Yes," added the wife. "We always thought she was one of the better neighbors..."
The charming nature of such a statement would stick with Sara for a long time. Even as it was spoken, she could not help smiling. And she supposed there was no real reason to try to explain to people whose developing years were from such a different time why a good neighbor could still be a bad person.
"We're not at liberty to discuss that," came in Brass for the save. "Can you tell us what you knew about Mrs. Geraldine Samekey?"
"Just that she was awarded custody when they found our daughter's body. She had had 'more contact' with Brandon, and so the judge gave him to her." The husband brushed his chest off, as if there was something there, and gave a little shrug. "She let us see him frequently for the first year. But then, they never seemed to be around... That picture, there, came from his graduation."
A dark look came over both of their faces, and Sara felt compelled to lean a little closer...
"There was a man, there..." the husband proceeded.
But his tone had slowed down, greatly. As if he were on the edge of something large, and unpleasant.
"After the ceremony, we went looking for Brandon to ask what he'd been up to, and we found him behind the school. With... that man..."
The wife winced, and re-took over the explaining. "Our grandson was... on his knees, in the dirt. Performing oral... sexual acts on this... man, Ms. Sidle!"
Greg's eyes grew about four sizes. "In public...?" he inquired. "A man claiming to be the uncle of a barely-legal high-school graduate was accepting oral sex from him? Right after the ceremony...?"
"Oh, it was terrible..." said the wife, and put her head in the hand that wasn't holding on to her husband's forearm. "We began to shriek, but we were told to stop. He took Brandon by the neck, and began to drag him away. He said he would injure him if we did not stop calling attention to us. There was a look on Brandon's... face..."
Her voice broke. Her husband's arm came up around her shoulder, and patted it.
He then looked directly at Sara, and no one else around them. "We have been receiving letters from someone. Threatening us frequently, should we speak about it. Saying we were being watched... We went to the police station once. But when we got out, we saw that man up by the door. And then, as we went to the ice cream shop, instead, we passed Brandon. Right by the apartment complex. Over there, actually..."
He pointed, though Sara did not look. And he did not look away...
"His eye was black. He looked up at me..."
A shaky, course breath entered the older man's lips in the short break between sentences. Sara squeezed her elbows in her opposite hands.
"He was trying to warn us, I think. That they were hurting him... And the other person, behind him, was standing unusually close. With his arm cocked forward... like he was pressing a gun into his back."
A silence fell. And all Sara could hear were the wild thoughts racing in her mind. Mixed with the sirens still going on the ambulance and police cars... The red hot rage that rolled through her was unsurpassed by anything she had ever felt before.
"We never did try to contact them after that," finished the wife. "We figured it was for the best. If there is a God out there... it's in His hands, now."
Then Greg was suddenly beside Sara. He looked over at her with the same kind of obnoxious concern she was so used to seeing on his face.
But then he spoke... and she knew at once that he hadn't been thinking about her well-being like before. "Brandon's... here. In town, still. And the man... the one who hurt him... is dead."
A funny feeling replaced Sara's anger for a moment. When the old woman burst out crying, and a few silent tears left her husband's dreary eyes, the relief they were feeling – though she could not imagine it fully – seemed to find its way to her own heart, as well.
"Oh, God..." the woman sobbed. "Oh, thank God!"
She sniffled, and reached instinctively into her husband's pocket, withdrawing a handkerchief like she knew he wouldn't dare to complain about her using it.
"Where is Geraldine, then?" the husband asked. "We can all have our reunion!"
"Oh, I've so much to bake..." the wife added. "Can we go and see Brandon, now? We–"
Brass had started saying "ma'am" long before he ended up having to shout. But the two old grandparents – though they did fall quiet – did not look discouraged.
Until they heard what he had to say next. "She's dead, too. And Brandon's a suspect in her death. As well as his abuser's. We'll be talking to him next. Downtown..."
The lab seemed unusually quiet. Nick did not stride like he usually tried to when moving around through it. The little, outdated card in his hand weighed too much for being so scientifically light... And it was the person whose name was on it that he was occasionally glancing around for. The questions hiding in his mind were just too much to push down. If he tried, he would come undone. And if he came undone, it would not be as an emotional mess, unfit to keep working. Not anymore...
So he stayed quiet as he looked into Hodges' lab. Before he remembered Hodges was gone... Ecklie would have to be around somewhere. He would have to give IA their obligatory tour around the lab.
But when he finally caught up with him, it was Russell he was with. Nick gave pause as he drew level with them by the guest waiting area. A couple of people with visitors' tags were sitting in the chairs, but the tones of the two were hushed. He wondered, however ridiculous it sounded, if they had talked about him at all...
"–should probably tell Sara, too..." was the last thing Nick heard from Ecklie before he had to move. Just in time to avoid letting them see that he had caught some of what they were saying...
"Ecklie," he greeted, half-accusingly. "We have to talk about our case..."
"So, if Grandiose Plastics really did close in 2000, this was all going on shortly after I came here."
Sara was sitting in the front seat of the GMC, and Greg was behind the wheel. Stacked by her feet were the evidence pieces they had acquired from the apartments. And the thought that had refused to leave her mind was the one she'd just voiced.
"Yeah..." came Greg's answer, a moment later. Muted by the light whirring of the heat in the car, and cracked slightly by the thickness of his emotion. "Yeah, it was... Before I was even a CSI..."
"There was nothing you could have done," Sara responded automatically. "There was nothing we could have done. We tried! Or, well, someone did at our department..."
"'Yeah' on that one, too," Greg mused, and cleared his throat to remove the scratchiness. "I wonder about that: do you think the person involved back then still works there? At the P.D...?"
Sara shrugged. "Who knows? We could ask Ecklie, I guess. He's probably the only one who would have access to those kinds of records. But in the meantime, we had better get ahold of Nick. He'll want to know about all this. And Russell..."
But then, it occurred to her that neither Nick nor Russell might appreciate that. Russell insisted that Nick was not done supervising, and he wasn't about to break form. So that meant Nick might feel slighted if they deferred to Russell instead of him. She bit down on her bottom lip...
"Do you think we should skip Russell?"
Greg's expression reminded her a little of Nick's, actually. Under similar circumstances... "Yeah, I think we should skip Russell on that call list. Just call Nick. Find out what he wants us to do after we get our evidence secured, and how it turned out at the storage unit."
She nodded, and began to scroll through her phone's contacts. There was a beep when she tapped Nick's name. It brought a small, toothy grin to her face.
But Nick did not answer. She tried again. And again, and again. And again a few times after. Until Greg's hand came out, and slid her phone from her hand to the car's top storage console.
"He's not answering on purpose, Sara. He's probably busy. Managing, and all that..."
There was an oddly-playful tone to his voice, but Sara did not focus in on it for long. "Bullshit," she said, instead. "And don't touch my phone when I'm using it."
She retrieved it... and ran her finger up and down her list of contacts. And hoped against hope that he would call back before she landed on another one. An odd feeling pulsed shortly when her finger landed on Grissom. But when she pushed down a little ways, and the list came up to last name "B" category, she was struck with an idea
"Oh," she breathed. "Of course..."
Morgan answered immediately, unlike the object of her sudden concern. "Hello?"
"Morgan? It's Sara. Hey, have you heard from Nick?"
The sound of her own voice was mildly grating on her nerves. She chewed on the end of her tongue behind her lips.
Morgan's voice, on the other hand, was all too cheerful. "Can't say that I have. Got some great news on the case front, though! Guess who I just ran into?"
Sara waved a hand across her face, as if to indicate her lack of interest. But then, upon remembering that Morgan couldn't see her, she simply asked: "Who?"
"Detective Moreno," Morgan answered. "I guess Brandon has been the center of investigation before... And Detective Vega worked with my dad on the last one!"
Sara shot upright in her seat. "Oh!" she exclaimed in sheer exasperation. "Of course!"
Morgan didn't seem to pick up the exasperation part, though. "I know!" she kept going excitedly. "It's so weird... But Vega was Moreno's stepfather, and he left some information on the previous case. Moreno is going to bring it to CSI for us!"
Sara rubbed her eyes and fought to keep the insincerity out of her voice as she answered. "That's great, Morgan. You keep working on that with Pip. Greg and I have some new evidence, too, so we'll see you back at CSI, then."
"'That's great'...?" repeated Morgan. "Are you serious? That's huge! I–"
Beep.
Sara gave her phone a light toss, and leaned her head on one knee, a foot propping it up on the seat cushion. "Greg, hurry up. Get back to the lab."
"Sorry?" he asked sarcastically. "Did I hear a 'please'?"
"Sorry... Please get back to the lab, so the next case on our load doesn't begin with your dead body."
He started sideways at her. Until there was a honk in the next lane, and he had to look away to correct his steering.
"Well, don't kill someone!" she shouted.
He gripped the top of the wheel more tightly. "I can't do it all, Sara." he said through gritted teeth. "It's either haste or care... Which do you want?"
"Okay, okay," she threw out hastily. "I'm sorry, really. Let me grab some evidence."
For they had just pulled back in to the lab. And even though he was going slow – and she wondered if he did so on purpose, the mousy little bastard – she did not rush ahead. They hauled the evidence, reported it to the new desk worker on shift, and dropped it in the separate locker room for large, unprocessed articles. Then she brushed her hands off, and looked around...
She had forgotten, for a second, where the secondary evidence locker room was, in relation to Grissom's office.
No, Russell's...
No... That wasn't right, either. It was Nick's, for the night. And that was where she stalked off too, just after registering that Greg had initialed the collection clipboard for them both.
There was a slight briskness in her walk. It was one of those feelings she was sure there was a word for, but she didn't know it. Her head didn't turn much, but her eyes seemed to be moving themselves back and forth, in spite of her best efforts to control them. She could see Greg blinking and frowning, puzzled, in the walls' reflections as he followed after her.
"Sara? Are you...?" Greg began to say.
But she ignored him. Her feet came a little more under her control. She put a slight swing into her arms, rather than the stiff downward angle that they had been. Her head turned more freely with her eyes. She took a few deep breaths. Everything was fine. And there he was, standing at the desk he was borrowing back for the evening, an old folder spreading out before him, and his hands expertly separating whatever was in it. She was taken, again, by a visible sadness in his stance. Although she couldn't have explained it, she did not even want to struggle with it. She resumed her brisk pace, and slammed right into the back of him.
Or at least, that's what she guessed she had done. "Oof!" was the sound he made. It hadn't seemed as much to her.
"Was somebody missing me?" he teased, eyes still on the folder.
"Oh, sure," she returned. "I called you to tell you."
He took a break from his folder sorting to make a dismissive gesture with the hand he'd been using. "I turned my phone off. The family were starting to drive me crazy."
So, that was the sadness... "Oh. Sorry..."
But he must not have missed the edge in her words. He pulled the phone from his shirt pocket, and pressed down on the power button.
"It's alright, Nick. I just wanted to tell you about the evidence we found. And the story we heard..."
She brushed some of her hair, which seemed longer to her, all of a sudden, out of her eyes.
"And, you know, to check in. You, uh... assigned yourself to yourself. Just making sure nothing else had happened..."
He gave a single nod, and brief flash of his teeth. He got what she meant, and she knew that he had. That was enough to settle her down.
"I'm okay," he said. "I just found and heard some things, too..."
She let her temple come to rest on his shoulder. "Oh...? Like what?"
"Something important. I think you'll want to see this..."